Geneva [Switzerland], Jan. 13 : The United Nations International Labour Organization (ILO), which released its 2017 World Employment and Social Outlook on Thursday, finds economic growth trends lagging behind employment needs and predicts both rising unemployment and worsening social inequality throughout 2017.

"We are facing the twin challenge of repairing the damage caused by the global economic and social crisis and creating quality jobs for the tens of millions of new labour market entrants every year," said ILO Director-General Guy Ryder.

Zurich [Switzerland], Jan.10 :Real Madrid star striker Cristiano Ronaldo has been named the world's best player for the fourth time at the FIFA's annual awards ceremony in Zurich, Switzerland.

Ronaldo, who inspired Zinedine Zidane's side to the Champions League glory and Portugal to the European Championship 2016 trophy, defeated perennial rival Lionel Messi and Atletico Madrid forward Antoine Griezmann to win the coveted prize.

Jubilant with his feat, Ronaldo admitted that 2016 was a dream year for him because he led both Madrid as well as the national team to the title.

Eight years ago, 10 terrorists of the Pakistan-based LeT attacked multiple public places in Mumbai from November 26-28, 2008, killing more than 160 civilians, many of them foreigners. Except for the death of some European tourists, the general notion in Europe was that the shocking terror incident had taken place far from their home shores, with close to no threat of such attacks being replicated in the West.

Geneva [Switzerland), Nov.22 : The Geneva-headquartered European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) has inked an an agreement with India that confirms the latter as the latest associate member state of the organisation.

CERN operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world.

An official release of the organisation said that India's inclusion as an associate member state follows CERN Council's adoption of the resolution to this effect on September 15, 2016.

For India, Sekhar Basu, Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission and Secretary, Department of Atomic Energy signed the agreement, while Fabio Gianotti, Director General, signed it on behalf of CERN.

Geneva [Switzerland], Sept. 20 : Maintaining that human rights violations in Balochistan are at its worst, Paulo Casaca, a former member of the European Parliament, said that the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a fully militarised project.

Casaca said that people who raise their voices on the issue in Pakistan are murdered and their bodies dumped.

"I think it [human rights violation ] must be one of the worst there [Balochistan], because I do not know of any policy of kill and dump like the one pursued in Balochistan. People that are seen as vocal in expressing a certain culture, even if they do not have known political activity, they are being murdered and their bodies have been dumped," Casaca told ANI.

Geneva : US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart today took a walk by Lake Geneva and then began intense talks here on Tehran's nuclear programme to remove the "significant gaps" that remain ahead of a key deadline.

The bilateral talks between Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif Zarif and Kerry have begun while the P5+1 ?- China, Russia, the UK, the US, France and Germany -- were to meet as a group later.

Ali Akbar Salehi, the director of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's brother and close aide Hossein Fereydoon along with US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz made their maiden appearance in the talks signalling that the deal is entering a sensitive stage.

Zurich: Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand played out an easy draw with Sergey Karjakin of Russia in the fifth and final round to win the Classical section of Zurich Chess Classic here.

Awarded two points for a win and one for a draw under new rules in place here, Anand tallied seven points in all, winning two and drawing the remaining three games in the six-player round robin. This also meant a much-needed recovery in ELO points after losing heavily in the preceding Grenke Classic tournament.

Davos: Lauding RBI's role in helping bring down inflation, Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian said the central bank may further ease the interest rates as improvement on price front has opened the space for monetary easing.

"The way I view is that RBI has a mandate to bring down inflation and keep it low and given the inflation has been coming down, that opened up the space for monetary policy easing and RBI has begun that," said Subramanian, who was here to attend the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting.

Davos : Top technology leaders, including Microsoft's Satya Nadella, Google's Eric Schmidt and Vodafone's Vittorio Colao, Thursday said they are hugely optimistic about the prospects of digital economy, while Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg cited an Indian story here at the WEF to support her optimism.

In a panel discussion on the potential for digital economy at WEF Annual Meeting, Facebook's COO said there were two brothers in a village in India where they could not go to hospitals, but they joined the technology bandwagon and their lives changed.

Davos - India is back in the reckoning at the global centre-stage and the huge build-up in positive sentiments among investors should soon start converting into real investment flows on the ground, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said.

With a packed agenda of meetings with investors and the government representatives from various countries here at WEF annual meeting, Jaitley said that many of these investors were looking at India either to invest or to expand their presence.

Davos : As companies are moving towards automation, Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka Wednesday said there would be temporary replacement of jobs and lower IT costs.

Sikka, who was speaking as a panelist in a session on 'Inclusive Growth in the Digital Age' at the World Economic Forum here, said that the companies should move towards automation as it would be better in terms of cost.

The session focussed on issues related to automation leading to job cuts, inequality in incomes and role of education in the digital age.

"Technology makes people more productive...Their abilities are amplified with technology," Sikka, the first non-founder CEO of the over USD 8 billion IT services exporter, said.

Davos - The World Economic Forum's five-day annual jamboree of the global elite will begin here Tuesday with presence of over 2,500 political and business leaders, including union ministers Arun Jaitley and Piyush Goyal as well as more than 100 industry leaders from India.

Other prominent Indian names would include Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian, as also Chief Ministers of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh -- Devendra Fadnavis and Chandrababu Naidu, respectively.

Geneva : The Financial Stability Board, a global banking watchdog, proposed Monday new rules that would push mega-banks to double their financial buffers in order to shield economies and taxpayers if they collapse.

The proposed rules are "a watershed in ending `too big to fail` for banks," said Mark Carney, FSB chairman and head of the Bank of England.

The new regulations are meant to help avoid a repetition of the 2008 crisis sparked by the Lehman Brothers collapse, which shook the global financial sector to its core.

New Delhi/Zurich: As India steps up pressure on Swiss authorities in its pursuit of alleged black money, banks in Switzerland say they follow strict rules and the requests from Indian authorities must be "properly justified".

The Association of Foreign Banks in Switzerland, an over four-decade old grouping, is also of the view that a clear and transparent policy can help in dispelling "apprehensions" and the "conjectures" should not be allowed to dominate the public opinion.

To bring back illicit money stashed away overseas, India has recently made a fresh request to Switzerland to seek bank details of such entities.

Geneva, May 15 : A pear-shaped flawless 13.22 carat blue diamond, the world's largest, was sold for $23.7 million at Christie's Magnificent Jewels sale with a world record sale price of $1.7 million per carat, the event's organisers said Thursday.

Christie's said in a statement that 85 percent of the offered lots were sold of which 27 went at above $1 million.

Fetching the second best price was a 1912 Cartier's brooch at $17.5 million, followed by a 75.97 carat pear-shaped diamond for $14.4 million.

Geneva, May 2 : President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, President Park Geun-hye of South Korea and Mexican billionnaire Carlos Slim Friday won the World Telecommunication and Information Society (WTIS) Award 2014.

They have been honoured by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) in recognition of their leadership and dedication towards promoting ICT (information, communication and technology) development and broadband connectivity as a means of achieving sustainable development.

Switzerland is not in tune with the modern era as the European country still believes in bank secrecy, Union Finance minister P Chidambaram said.

In a letter to written to his Swiss counterpart Eveline Widmer Schlumpf, Mr. Chidambaram complained that Switzerland had been refusing to provide information about Indians' black money in its banks to the Indian government, despite a legal obligation of Swiss government under article 26 of the Double Taxation Avoidance Convention (DTAC).

Lausanne, March 20 : The international hockey federation (FIH) Thursday introduced major changes to the structure of the sport including reducing the 70-minute game to 60 minutes comprising four 15-minute quarters instead of two 35-minute halves. The changes will come into effect from Sep 1.

After the first and third quarters there will be a two-minute break while the existing 10-minute halftime will remain unchanged. The four-quarter model has been tried and implemented by both the Euro Hockey League and the Hockey India League.

Basel, March 14 - Top Indian shuttlers Saina Nehwal and P. V. Sindhu had contrasting victories to progress to the women's singles quarterfinals at the $125,000 Swiss Open Grand Prix Gold at St. Jakobshalle here Thursday.

French World No. 42 Sashina Vignes Waran was no match for the sixth seeded Indian as Saina came out on top 21-7, 21-13 in 34 minutes to proceed to the next stage. With the triumph, the Olympic bronze medallist took an undefeated 3-0 advantage in career clashes against Sashina.